


Becoming a Partner

by Bluewolf458



Series: Blair's Life (AU) [5]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 05:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16056356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Jim and Blair become partners





	Becoming a Partner

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2018 Sentinel bingo prompt 'sharing space'

Becoming a Partner

by Bluewolf

Jim had had no hesitation when he offered Blair the use of his spare room. However, when he thought about it half an hour later, he wondered if he had made the right decision. Could he share his living space with someone else? It was one of the reasons his marriage had failed. He had been fond enough of Carolyn - indeed, he still was; but sharing living space... Indeed, even as a child he had often chosen to spend the evenings in his bedroom, giving silence to do his homework as his reason.

Well, only time would tell.

***

The fire department's investigation of the blaze that destroyed the building where Blair had lived narrowed the cause down to faulty rewiring in the apartment where the explosion and fire originated, and Jim was pretty sure that the workman who had done the rewiring would lose his job just as soon as his boss was told about it - and Cascade Electrics' insurance would be drawn into the 'who pays for this?' argument because the damage was caused by incompetently done work. In addition, it turned out that the builders of the block appeared to have taken shortcuts when they built it - allowing the fire to spread unseen, meaning that the flames reached all parts of the building far more quickly than they should have done. So the builders' insurance was also drawn into the argument.

It could be more than a year, rather than just weeks, before all the blame was established and the blameless tenants' claims settled.

The morning after Blair had been given that information, he went to see his insurance company. Jim went straight to the PD, dug out the reports on his most recent case, and allowed himself a tired sigh, knowing that if he was asked he could blame it on the lack of results from his current reading.

Actually Blair was proving to be a more congenial room mate than he'd expected. But the idea of having him there, in his territory, for a year, possibly more, before Blair had the money to move on... Though he couldn't say to him, "Move out!" Not after inviting him to stay...

Blair didn't seem to be suffering any great financial hardship, but until he got the insurance money for his destroyed apartment Jim didn't see how he would be able to afford the down payment for a new one. And if he had to pay rent for the lease of an apartment for a year or more, that would be money to pay for a new apartment lost to him.

No, Jim decided. He just had to grit his teeth and put up with any repercussions from the so impulsive invitation he had given the younger man.

***

Blair arrived midway through the morning. There was a resigned look on his face.

"Problems?" Jim asked as Blair dragged over the chair that the cleaners put back against the wall every night.

"You'd think my insurance company could settle with me right away and then argue about getting the money back from Premium Insurers and - or - Davidson Insurance, but no. Reid-Johnston agrees that the fire was in no way my fault, but says that they can't settle with me until they get their pound of flesh from Premium and Davidson. As if any insurance company is short of money!" He blew out a huff that was more a sound of resignation than a sigh. "I suppose I was lucky that Naomi did actually insure the apartment - and for a little more than it was worth at the time; not the sort of thing I'd have said she'd normally think of. I might not have thought of it - I was pretty young to be a home-owner when she moved on. As it was, I just let the payments continue. And once everything is finally settled... I suppose I'll just carry on using Reid-Johnston. I'd doubt the other displaced tenants are finding their insurance companies any more helpful."

"That's how those companies - even the best of them - make their profits," Jim said, feeling surprisingly sympathetic. "Delay paying things out for as long as possible."

"I can see that," Blair agreed. "And a lot of my ex-fellow tenants are going to have financial problems because of it. I'm just lucky that you... I really do appreciate it, Jim. I don't want to embarrass you by getting too effusive about it, but... I know it can't be easy for you having me underfoot all the time."

"You're easier to live with than Carolyn was," Jim said, surprising himself. "She wanted to fill the loft with all kind of useless bits and pieces that were supposed to make the place look... well, lived-in; sugar-sweet ornaments that were only good for catching dust. All you've added is a few books."

Blair grinned. "Naomi wasn't the kind of person to amass belongings of any kind. We traveled around for years when I was very young, and all we had, really, was three or four changes of clothes. We only settled here for me to go to school, and we still only had some basic furniture and a few clothes. I started buying books after she decided to move on, but even then it was mostly course books for Rainier, or ones I thought might give me some insights into anthropology. That's why I had The Sentinels of Paraguay - I thought it might give me some info on anthropology a hundred years ago. It didn't, but it was interesting enough to keep."

"I'm definitely finding it... informative."

Blair grinned. "I hoped you would."

He reached out and pulled over the reports that Jim had already read.

***

Blair only had time to read the first page of the first report before they were interrupted.

"Ellison!" Captain Banks' voice was impatient - as if he had called several times and been ignored.

"Come on," Jim muttered and led Blair towards Banks' office.

Banks glanced at Blair and shrugged. Jim had proved to be more patient with his ride along than the Captain had expected, and he found himself wondering how Jim would react when that ride along ended. And Sandburg had certainly proved to be more useful than Banks would have expected.

"Car went off the road early this morning," he said. "No other cars involved. Ended up in the river. The driver got out okay, and he tested clear for drink and drugs. Just a freak accident.

"Anyway, the cops who went out called for a salvage team - the car might be repairable, might not, but they didn't think it was a good idea to leave it possibly leaking gas into the river. When a couple of divers went down to hitch a recovery line to it, they saw another car; so they recovered it as well.

"You're not going to like this, Ellison. The plate on it said 'Jacks Toy'."

Blair was aware of Jim stiffening. "I always said something must have happened to him."

"There was nobody in the driver's seat... but there was a body in the trunk. It's been identified as Philip Brackley. He'd been shot; and the gun was in the car." Banks was silent for a moment, then went on. "IA is wanting a word with you; Sheila Irwin will be coming down in a couple of minutes."

"Why? I had nothing to do with Jack being assigned to deliver the ransom money - "

"When they checked the license number on the gun... It's registered to you."

There was a brisk knock on the door; it opened and a woman entered. "Hello, Captain... Jim." She looked a little suspiciously at Blair, clearly wondering who he was.

Banks looked at him. "Would you mind?" he asked, indicating the door.

Blair left, a little reluctantly. He supposed that the woman was the Sheila Irwin from IA that Banks had mentioned.

He crossed to Jim's desk and sank into his chair.

A few minutes later, the woman left Banks' office. She walked briskly across the bullpen, totally ignoring Blair, and left. A minute later, Jim also left the office and crossed to his desk. His face was expressionless, but Blair could guess that he was worried.

"This giving you a problem?" he asked softly.

"Irwin... So far the only evidence is purely circumstantial but she's convinced that Jack is sitting back somewhere with his feet up, maybe in Hawaii, enjoying a life of leisure from the money. Convinced that I stayed put with a share of it. It didn't help that the gun was still registered to me; I'd bought it, yes, but it was for Jack - a birthday present - and he disappeared just a couple of days later, before he had a chance to change the registration. As for the money... IA thinks that we split it, because I bought the loft just after Jack disappeared - never had to take out a mortgage, I had the money to buy it outright. Most of that money was back pay from when I was stuck in Peru. It took a while for the payment to get through all the red tape, and it arrived just in time to let me buy the loft - the owner had decided to sell it. Another couple of weeks and I'd have been looking for somewhere else to live."

"So why can't you just tell them that?"

"I did, but I can't prove it; there's no official record of the payment. Despite the 'interview' in Time magazine, my time in Peru is mostly classified; that was why I couldn't tell the reporter much. You're talking a very delicate balancing act here, between what I can tell anyone and what I can't. There were some factors involved in the Peru trip that meant the pay involved was on a different scale from the standard one. My back pay from it was higher... " He fell silent.

After a moment he went on, "I'm quite sure something happened to Jack. He loved that car - no way would he have shoved it into the river. And the gun - he'd been looking it at in the shop window, admiring it, for weeks. No way would he have abandoned that either." He was silent again for a moment, then said, "I've been suspended, but I want a look at that car before I leave."

He glanced at Banks' office. The blinds on the glass separating it from the bullpen were closed. "Come on," he said softly, and led the way out.

They rode the elevator down to the forensics garage. The car was there, and there was no sign of any of the forensics mechanics. Jim walked around it.

The windows of both the driver's door and the front seat passenger's were missing - there were a few shards of broken glass still in the door frames, showing that the windows had been shattered by something. Jim ran his hand lightly along the bottom of the driver's side window.

"Someone blew those windows out with a shotgun," he said. "I can feel where the pellets impacted. Okay - next step is checking on any bodies found in the river... "

Blair followed him out of the garage and up the single flight of stairs to Forensics.

***

Serena Chang looked up from the report she was entering into her computer and smiled insincerely when she saw them. "Can I help you, Detective?"

"Chang, your department keeps track of any bodies found, say in the river, doesn't it? The records stay here until they're identified?"

She looked slightly puzzled. "Yes."

"Can you tell me... " Jim hesitated. "Do you have a map of the immediate area?"

She opened a drawer, pulled out a map and unfolded it, putting in on a table beside her. Jim studied it for a moment, then pointed. "If a car went into the river about here... would the current be able to pull the driver out of an open window?"

"It could happen," she agreed.

"How far would the body be washed downstream? Say in the last six or seven months?"

"A lot would depend on the river bed, and how high the water happened to be. It could snag on a rock, for example, and be anything from a few yards to three or four miles downstream."

"Have any bodies been recovered from that stretch of the river in that time period?"

"Just one - a boy, possibly thirteen or fourteen. He hasn't been identified, so he could have been a runaway from another part of the country."

"No adult males?"

"Not in that part of the river. There was one found about four months ago further downstream, in what could be called a tributary - it runs into the river inside the tidal area - if he hit there with an incoming tide, he could have been pushed into it by the tide rather than carried out to sea. But I really can't see anyone being washed that far downriver."

"Wait a minute," Blair said. "Remember that bad storm five months ago? We got nearly a year's worth of rain in twenty-four hours. There was a lot of flooding. If he was in the river then, the force of water could have taken him that far downstream... and the prevailing wind is from the west, so between that and an incoming tide... "

Serena, who had been ignoring him as an unknown, turned her attention to him. "You're right!" she said.

"Do you have a description of him?" Jim asked.

"If you can call a description of an almost totally defleshed skeleton one of 'him'," she replied, "but actually we still have the body - the skeleton - in the morgue here, because nobody has claimed it. Another couple of months, though, and he'll be buried - we only keep bodies like his for six months in the hope of getting an identification."

"Can I see it?"

"This way."

She took them to the morgue and pulled open a drawer. Jim looked down at the bones, not sure just what he had been hoping to see. And then -

"Yes! Thank you, Serena. I owe you one!" He turned and headed out.

Blair glanced at the woman. "I think you'll have an identification for him before the day is out," he said, and hurried after Jim. He just managed to follow the detective into the elevator before the door closed.

"It's Jack," Jim said quietly as the elevator began to move upwards.

Back on the Major Crime floor, Jim hurried into the bullpen and over to Banks' office. He knocked on the door and entered, Blair at his heels.

"What is it now, Ellison?" Banks asked. "I thought you'd have left - "

"Proof that Jack's dead," Jim said. "His body is down in the morgue."

"Wha-?"

"It was recovered from the river some four months ago, very close to the sea. Just a skeleton, really - but the little toe is missing from the left foot. And you can see that there never was one; it's the body of someone who only ever had four toes on that foot."

"Jack was so sensitive about that," Banks whispered.

"Yes. It couldn't possibly be someone else," Jim said. "And... I went down to the garage. Someone blasted the car with a shotgun before it went into the river."

"But... But why? He was delivering the ransom money. Why kill him? And use his gun to kill young Brackley?"

"His father suspected Philip of staging his own kidnap to con money out of him. What if that was right, but Philip had a fellow conspirator who double-crossed him?" Jim asked.

"Is it possible... " Blair began, then hesitated.

"Go on," Jim encouraged him.

"Is it possible that the accomplice realized that the guy bringing the ransom money knew him, killed him because of that, then double-crossed Philip so that he would get away with all the money? Muddying the water by using the first victim's - Jack's - gun?"

"In the hope that everyone would think that Jack had killed the kidnapper as well as Philip, and absconded with the money," Banks finished. "And it worked."

"But who... " Jim began. "The only people who knew Jack was delivering the ransom money were the Brackleys and one of their staff - Art Landis."

"Could it have been Landis?" Banks asked.

"Pretty cold-blooded if it was," Jim said. "According to the father, Landis had known Philip all his life."

"I know you'd like to deal with this," Banks went on, "but I'm giving it to Rafe and Brown. I can't give it to you because of the IA investigation. You've already gone out on a limb over identifying Jack's body, but I can cover that. In fact I'll go down now and speak to Serena about it. If IA asks, we're checking up because Jack's car was found in the river. They can't argue with that.

"Meanwhile, you two get out of here. Remember, Ellison, you're on suspension because of the IA investigation; and Sandburg, I'm sure you'd like some extra time to write up stuff for your dissertation."

Banks rode down in the elevator with them. As he left it to go to Forensics, he said quietly, "I'll be in touch."

"Yes, sir. Thank you," Jim replied equally quietly. The elevator continued its descent to the garage.

***

Once they were back at the loft, Blair said quietly, "Sit down and relax, and I'll get us something to eat. This has given you some closure, but it can't have been easy for you, identifying Jack like that."

Jim looked at him. "You're right," he said. "I was pretty sure Jack had to be dead, but seeing him like that... just a skeleton... " He sank down onto one of the couches. Blair moved over to the kitchen area and opened the freezer.

Jim was very, very aware of Blair taking a container of frozen soup and putting it into the microwave to defrost, his attention wholly on what he was doing - giving Jim as much privacy as he could, Jim realized.

The detective's mind returned to his thoughts of not so very much earlier, and he realized that he had been wrong. Sharing living space with Blair...

He could still remember the days before his step-mother walked out, leaving her own son behind as well as her unwanted step-son. Not that she had actually neglected Jim, but he had been aware that she had only been motivated - at the time - by a sense of responsibility; one that hadn't lasted. But then her love for Steven hadn't been enough to hold her, either. His father's drive to be more and more successful had interfered with his personal relationships; he had driven her away, just as he had driven his sons apart by his insistance that they compete at all levels - each had to try to be better than the other - hence his preference for spending his evenings in his bedroom, apparently concentrating on schoolwork. Life growing up in William Ellison's house had not been comfortable.

Life in the army... The lack of privacy was something he had found difficult, but had accepted as part of army life. With the Chopek - his memories of those days were surprisingly vague, but he remembered a hut in which he slept, and which nobody else had entered; his days were mostly full of company, but he had privacy at night.

But the few interminable months of his marriage... He had found living with Carolyn more than difficult. After a day like this, she would never have thought he needed - well, down time.

But Blair... he had understood. Understood that the day had been difficult for him; understood that even with the closure of knowing what had happened to the man who had been his partner, Jim was still very upset by the discovery of exactly what had happened. And Blair - Jim sniffed, and recognized the smell of chicken broth. Blair was preparing some comfort food for him.

Jim found himself relaxing more than he would have expected - and knew that he would find sharing space with Blair easier that he had feared.

The unwanted ride along had become a true partner. One with whom he now knew he could quite happily share his home for the rest of his life.

He just hoped that Blair felt the same way - that he, too, would like their present arrangement to continue for the rest of their lives.

Partners, sharing space.

And then he suddenly remembered something Incacha had said; that in his own land he would find his true companion... and realized that he had.


End file.
